


Rose-Tinted Glasses

by belated_snek



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Author is salty, Civil War Team Iron Man, Don't Like Don't Read, Everybody else owns up to their mistakes, Gen, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, One Shot, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Steve Rogers bashing, Steve gets what he deserves, Steve's Pov, Steve's letter to Tony is a whole load of BS, Tony doesn't need Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 11:09:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20599784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belated_snek/pseuds/belated_snek
Summary: Through rose-tinted glasses: 1.(verb) to have an optimistic, and often unrealistic perspective of things, oblivious to the negative. 2.(adj.) with an unduly cheerful, optimistic, or favorable view of things





	Rose-Tinted Glasses

The day Steve sent the letter, he was so sure everything was going to go back to how it was before. He sent his apology, now he just had to sit back and wait for Tony to come begging at his feet. 

The day he got the letter back, unopened, “return to sender” in big bold letters that seemed to jump out at him, his world came crashing down. The rose-tinted glasses he saw the world through cracked. Yet, his remorse and guilt turned into anger and determination.

He would get Tony back, whether the other man liked it or not. He knew that he was right and Tony was wrong, and everything would return to normal, as soon as Tony realized where he went wrong. He ignored the crack in the rose-tinted glasses.

The day King T’Challa announced that Tony had gotten pardons for Steve and the rest of his team, Steve was thrilled. This was his chance. Tony obviously saw where he went wrong, and now he was trying to fix it. Finally, Tony saw the world for how it really was. He’d go back, Tony would apologize, and Steve would take him back.

The day they landed on US soil, on _home_, was the day Steve thought his world was going to fix itself. Everything was going perfectly. But Tony wasn’t there.

They were met by strangers who seemed to think they were better than him, who glared at him and threatened that if he ever went after Tony, he would regret it. Steve didn’t like these people. They seemed to see the world through rose-tinted glasses, just like Tony, but Steve knew better.

The day he confronted Tony was the day he knew everything was going to be better. Except it didn’t. Tony looked at him indifferently, before leaving with no comment, and when Steve reached out to grab his arm, Tony flinched back like he was going to hit him.

How ridiculous, Steve would never hurt Tony. He stubbornly glared at Tony through those rose-tinted glasses, ignoring the crack that seemed to be a little bigger than the day before.

The day Scott Lang and Clint Barton signed the accords, Steve felt a punch to the guts. But what kind of man would he be to deny them the chance to be with their families again?

It didn't keep the voice in his head from shouting in protest. How could they do what Tony did to them? Couldn’t they see that the Accords had ripped apart the team? See that the Accords just wanted to take away their freedom, to control them, use them as weapons? At least they still stuck by his side. They still knew that the safest hands were their own. And they were. Right?

The day the video footage from Siberia made its way online, was the day the crack grew too big to ignore. Hairline fissures created a spider-web along the rose-tinted glass.

He watched helplessly as one by one, his teammates, his friends, his _family_, left him, not sparing him a single glance. A few of Tony's friends gave him sympathetic looks, but too many laughed behind their hands. The two kids that Tony seemed to favor were especially and totally unnecessarily gleeful about the entire situation.

He knew that he was wrong this time, that he should have handled the situation differently. But Tony had been wrong too! He shouldn't have attacked Bucky! He shouldn't have signed the Accords! Nobody was there to listen this time. At least he still had Bucky.

The day Bucky stopped talking to him was when those damn rose-tinted glasses finally shattered, leaving Steve to see the world for the first time through clear eyes. He looked around at the damage they caused--no, the damage _he caused_, and finally realized that, no, it was him seeing the world through rose-tinted glasses, and he had been wrong, so wrong. 

The day those glasses finally shattered, Steve cried himself to sleep. He had done this, and now it was too late. He had lost. He had lost _everything_. And now he was alone. The little kid from Brooklyn had become the very thing he despised. He had just been too stupid to see it. To see through those glasses. 

Those rose-tinted glasses.

**Author's Note:**

> Me writing this on a school night at 11:00 pm because I'm feeling salty. Yay.  
This was basically a combination of a bunch of my favorite anti-team cap headcanons, and I tried to leave a lot of it open for interpretation :)


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